A study of the toxic perfluorinated chemicals found in water near U.S. military airports has measured drinking-water contamination at an undisclosed site at levels more than 100 times higher than a federal health advisory limit.

Colorado School of Mines researchers also found that the carbon filters being installed by hard-hit communities — including Fountain and Widefield, south of Peterson Air Force Base — fail to fully remove the chemicals, according to a peer-reviewed study to be published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

The city water supply where perfluorinated chemical (PFC) contamination measured 11,000 parts per trillion (ppt) and 33,000 ppt – far above the EPA health advisory limit of 70 ppt – “was in a water supply near a military base” where firefighters had used aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), a primary source of contamination, Higgins said. The samples were taken “from a wellhead that was feeding into the water supply.”

Higgins said he couldn’t disclose the site under an agreement that allowed researchers to conduct water tests. “Not all communities have piped in new water,” he said. “This issue is relevant to Colorado Springs-area water for sure.”

Widefield district officials said Monday the water they provide customers is free of PFCs following installation of two different types of water-cleaning systems. Fountain officials are preparing to install carbon filters at two of four contaminated municipal wells. Security officials have shifted away from tainted wells to purchasing mountain river water diverted to Colorado Springs.

Toxicologists said PFCs at such high concentrations can hurt human health, especially among children and pregnant women. PFCs have been linked to low birth weights, cancers of the kidneys and testicles, and other problems.

“Certainly at 33,000 ppt and 11,000 ppt, I would not want to drink the water. These are orders of magnitude above the health advisory level, which means that the probability of health risks increases,” said Jamie DeWitt, a toxicologist at East Carolina University medical school who has studied PFCs for a decade.

“At these levels, it becomes probable that health effects will occur in exposed babies or children.” DeWitt said. “With spills and other catastrophes that lead to high levels, local flora and fauna can die. But lower levels that persist over years change our health in more subtle ways. Cancer, immune diseases, and neurobehavioral disorders are all on the rise. And more and more studies indicate that environmental contaminants are contributing to these increases.”

The U.S. government does not regulate PFCs, which also are used to make products resistant to grease including carpet, cookware, clothing and fast-food wrappers. The same properties that make PFCs useful putting out fuel fires prevent them from breaking down in the environment. They rank among the worst of hundreds of unregulated chemicals that federal scientists are detecting in drinking water supplies, including hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and anti-depressants, because they cannot easily be removed.

Making and using PFCs isn’t illegal, but some manufacturers voluntarily stopped production of the most problematic “long-chain” PFCs, known as PFOA and PFOS. However, Higgins said shorter-chain PFCs touted as “green” alternatives may cause harm, too. Health data is scarce because epidemiological studies haven’t been done.

In 2016, the firefighting foam used at military bases and airports was found to be a major source of contamination of drinking water with long-chain PFOA and PFOS — affecting water used by more than 6 million Americans.

The Colorado School of Mines researchers detected multiple PFCs used in firefighting foam that are able to flow through carbon filtration systems. “Carbon does not work as well,” Higgins said. “These chemicals will saturate the carbon even faster than PFOA and PFOS. It means the filter is less effective.”
Far more expensive reverse osmosis water-cleaning systems are thought to be more effective removing PFCs from contaminated drinking water and groundwater. The waste these systems remove has to be handled at special facilities.

PFCs contamination above 70 ppt, revealed last year, drove Security, Fountain and Widefield water providers to reduce their pumping of groundwater from relatively shallow municipal wells and scramble to find cleaner sources. Security has turned to a pipeline that carries water from a reservoir along the Arkansas River west of Pueblo. This “southern delivery system” for Colorado Springs has enabled less reliance on water pumped from local wells that now are contaminated with PFCs and other industrial chemicals, such as PCE (perchloroethylene) that leaked from a factory and a dry cleaner.

Widefield Water and Sanitation District water department manager Brandon Bernard said the district spent $2.5 million installing a carbon filtration and an ion-exchange chemical treatment system.

“We’re going with an ion-exchange technology. It’s been pretty effective” during a six-month pilot phase, Bernard said. “We found the granular-activated carbon worked, but not nearly as well.”

Military officials have committed to reimburse Widefield $850,000 once proper documentation is sent, Bernard said.

Fountain utilities director Curtis Mitchell said military contractors are expected to provide two carbon-filter systems by June 26 to remove PFCs contaminating two of four city wells. Residents have been relying on alternative sources including bottled water. Mitchell had seen a summary of the CSM research and said he needs to know details.

“This is not going away,” Mitchell said. “We’ve got four wells. This only takes care of two of them. And we have got to work on a long-term solution.”

The EPA in May 2016 set the PFCs health advisory limit of 70 ppt, tightened from a previous limit of 400 ppt as the latest scientific findings warranted greater caution.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment coordinated water testing to track a plume of PFC-contaminated groundwater, which was flowing toward Pueblo last fall. Federal EPA funds enabled that testing. El Paso County health authorities conducted the tests.

Now the water sampling has stopped, CDPHE spokeswoman Jan Stapleman confirmed Monday. “The ​Water Quality Control Division is not conducting any ​further PFC sampling. ​We expended the funds from the EPA to complete sampling.”

Nobody is measuring PFC levels as the contaminated groundwater flows south toward Pueblo and the Arkansas River Valley.

Bruce Finley covers environment issues, the land air and water struggles shaping Colorado and the West. Finley grew up in Colorado, graduated from Stanford, then earned masters degrees in international relations as a Fulbright scholar in Britain and in journalism at Northwestern. He is also a lawyer and previously handled international news with on-site reporting in 40 countries.

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